


Penmanship

by slightly_ajar



Series: Nowhere to go but everywhere [2]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Found Family, Friendship, Introspection, Post Season 2 Finale, Road Trips, Team as Family, brief appearances by original characters - Freeform, quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 16:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: Five times Mac sends a letter and one time he gets mail.Set after the season 2 finale.  Mac leaves LA and goes travelling to search for peace and clarity after walking away from the Phoenix.  He confronts some personal demons, trying to come to terms with his dad, his past, his family and his future, and he sends letters home to his friends along the way.“Besides, he liked the idea of writing letters, it was old fashioned, whimsical.  Mac knew that his friends all had a fondness for the quaint and playful, even edgy, tech savvy Riley loved watching Christmas movies in July.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on from my story The One You Feed. Having read that story before this one might help this story make a bit more sense here and there but it really won’t make a big difference if you haven’t. 
> 
> I had ideas in my head about what was going to happen after that story, where Mac was going to go and what he was going to do, but I wasn’t originally planning to actually write a sequel, then pictures from the new season started to appear and made it look like I wasn’t going to get the ‘Mac goes on a road trip’ episodes I was hoping for so I decided to make up some of my own. Be the change you want to see in the world, that’s what I say :)
> 
> This story is unbeta-ed. I've proof read the ever loving heck out of it but I've probably missed some spelling mistakes so if you find any errors please let me know and I'll fix them.
> 
> If you would like to come and say hello on Tumblr I’m there as [Sky-larking](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sky-larking)

**1**

Mac bought a stack of envelopes and several books of stamps before he boarded the train. He’d promised Jack that he would let him know that he was okay and he intended to keep that promise. But not electronically, no texts or emails, they were too immediate and Mac was seeking distance. 

Besides, he liked the idea of writing letters, it was old fashioned, whimsical. Mac knew that his friends all had a fondness for the quaint and playful, even edgy, tech savvy Riley loved watching Christmas movies in July. 

There was only a handful of passengers scattered throughout Mac’s carriage. They were sat in the ugly brown and green patterned seats, looking out of the window or staring down at their phones. 

The man in the suit at seven o’clock to Mac’s position wasn’t armed, his briefcase could have held a weapon but his breathing was fast and his face flushed, he just been running to avoid missing the train. His posture suggested he was relaxing into a relieved slump in his chair. He wasn’t surveying the room with any intent. He wasn’t a threat. The lady with the dyed red hair was…

Wait. 

What was he doing? 

Mac pressed a hand to his mouth to keep a hysterical bubble of laughter from escaping. 

_What was he doing?_

He wasn’t on a mission. He wasn’t a spy any more. He was a civilian. He didn’t have to assess his surroundings and prepare to adapt and overcome to insure that mission parameters weren’t compromised. He could just sit back and watch the scenery like a normal person. 

He pushed his bag into the scratched rails of the overhead luggage rack and settled into his seat next to the window, looking out to see Los Angeles slip away. 

The train pulled forward with a heavy metallic clank, the abrupt movement rocking Mac forwards in his seat, and gained momentum with a noisy rhythm that gently swayed the passengers from side to side. The clickity clack of the train’s wheels was the only sound in the carriage, it was quiet, peaceful. 

He was leaving. Pulling away from his home and his father and the complexity of each emotion he’d experienced as he’d seen his dad stood in the War Room, within touching distance, in his capacity as Oversight. 

The average American passenger train travels at eighty miles per hour, Mac thought, so in twenty five more minutes he’d been approximately…well, the specifics didn’t matter. He hadn’t climbed on the train to be a particular number of miles away. He wasn’t using a high school math question to unravel the mess in his head. _If Mac is on a train that is moving at 80mph and he leaves the station at 2.45pm how many miles will he have to travel before he finds closure?_ He didn’t even have a destination in mind, he’d bought an open ticket and was going to get off the train on an impulse. 

The need to drive himself forwards and away which had been so powerful as he’d sat by his fire pit had been met. The ebb of the urge to _move_ pulsing at the base of his throat left room for the hitch in his breath that had left him gasping until Jack talked him down over the phone, and the unwelcome catch started to form in his chest. Mac closed his eyes, focusing on the rough brush of the hardwearing fabric of his armrest underneath his fingers until he was breathing easily. Then he opened his eyes to watch the landscape change outside his window. 

The train stopped several times and passengers climbed on and off. The man with the briefcase left and an old lady took his seat, pulling out a large knitting project out of her bag when she sat down. The woman with the dyed hair fell asleep with her copy of Joni Mitchell’s biography resting open on her chest. Mac watched people hugging their loved ones on platforms and wondered what his friends were doing. If they understood why he’d chosen to leave. If they understood why he’d done it without saying goodbye. If it was fair to leave it to Jack to try to explain. If feeling lost and angry was ever a good enough reason to run away. 

“Is anyone sitting here?” 

The young women pointing to the seat next to him had an open smile and her long hair tied back in a braid that was falling over one shoulder. 

“No, it’s all yours if you want it.” He gestured to the empty seat with an open palmed flourish. 

“Great. Thanks.” She dropped into the seat with a bounce after shoving her bulging backpack into the luggage rack beside his. “I love train journeys, don’t you? Getting on is like the start of a movie, it’s like stepping out of your real life and setting out on an adventure, anything can happen, you know?” 

Mac blinked and agreed. 

Her name was Rosa and she was studying for a Masters in English Literature. She was meeting up with some friends to go to a music festival. She was sweet and funny and smelled like the mints she had in her jacket pocket and coconut hand cream. She laughed at Mac’s jokes and had just finished writing an assignment on Frankenstein. 

“…because who was the real monster?” She had turned her body around in her seat to face him, leaning her head on the back rest, her face bright and animated. “The creature had been forsaken and shunned and that’s what drove him to kill.” 

“He still is responsible for the choices he made though, isn’t he? He killed those people, not Frankenstein. Can you blame all of his action on Frankenstein? The creature was intelligent and knew exactly what he was doing.” 

“The Creature tells Frankenstein, ‘You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature.’ Frankenstein was hypocrite and a coward, what kind of morals would the Creature learn from a patriarch like that?” 

She left her seat to go to the bathroom and to see if there was somewhere she could buy a soda. As she stepped carefully through the door of the swaying carriage the train went into a tunnel and the early evening light outside the window was replaced by thick darkness. Mac could see his own face reflected back at him in the window. He looked pale and tired, his eyes silver and empty in the harsh overhead lights. The unexpected mirror showed him a person who felt suddenly and crushingly alone. A man trapped in solid ice that was separating him from the others around him, keeping him from warmth and contact. Mac had searched obsessively for his absent father and realised he already had a family when he found him, then walked away from them both because the reality of his past and its implications for his present were too much. He was using the pain and anger of abandonment to justify running from his home. Mac had hated being left and yet had chosen to leave and now was struggling with a profound feeling of loneliness. His emotional responses and decision making process had been, as Jack would undoubtedly say, covered in dumb dumb sauce. 

The train left the tunnel and Mac blinked at the daylight. His reflection vanished into the sun. 

“I was thinking,” Rosa appeared in front of him, holding out one of the two soda she was holding, “I’ve booked a room in a motel tonight, it’s a rock and roll themed one, I found it online, and you said you don’t have any plans so I guess that means you don’t know where you are staying, so?” She raised her eyebrows, leaving the question open. 

Mac took the offered can, watching his larger hand covered her fingers. They were soft and she was wearing a silver ring of twisting ivy on her thumb. He liked her and she apparently liked him. She smiled at him, patient and amused. 

“That would be, yeah, I’ve never stayed in a rock and roll motel.” 

“You’ll love it,” she sat and popped her drink open, holding it steady so the fizzing liquid didn’t spill on her jeans, “the pictures on the website are amazing, it looks like so much fun, it’s the kind of thing you have on your bucket list.” 

The motel’s sign was a huge, red Fender Stratocaster guitar and the entrance was shaped like a jukebox. Mac’s grin grew bigger with each detail he noticed, the receptionist dressed in a poodle skirt, murals of James Dean and Buddy Holly on the exterior walls, the black and white walls of Rosa’s room contrasting with the deep red of the bedsheets, shining chrome fittings and the portrait of Elvis singing Jailhouse Rock that took pride of place above the bed. The chorus of Hound Dog had burst around them as they checked in and Johnny Be Goode followed them as they searched for their room. 

“I have a friend who would love this.” Mac said, turning full circle in the centre of the room, his eyes wide and laughing at the thought of what Jack’s reaction would be. 

“They sell postcards of the motel in reception,” Rosa told him, she dropped her bag on the floor as she walked toward Mac, “You should send him one.” She stopped in front of him, leaving no distance between them and leaned up to kiss him again, making a pleased hum as their lips touched. They had kissed on the train and it had been gentle and warm and like not being lonely. Being with someone, next to someone, inside someone that way was like the opposite of being lonely. 

He discovered the tattoo of a bird that she had on her ribs and she found the scars left by bullets in his shoulder. His words stalled clumsily in his throat as her fingertips brushed over the marks. He didn’t want to lie to her but couldn’t find a reasonable version of the truth. 

“It’s okay, you know what they say,” she told him, pressing a kiss to the skin below the puckered tissue, “Scars and just tattoos with better stories.” 

Mac bought a postcard of the motel to send to Jack and wrote on the back: 

“You’d love it here. The shower curtain had Chevrolets on and the owner wears blue suede shoes.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

It started when he’d chased down a bag snatcher. Mac had seen the man grab an old lady’s purse out of her hands and run away while she shrieked in indignation. He ran to intercept the thief and took him down with a satisfying thump by tackling him off the sidewalk and into the mercifully quiet road of the small town he was in. The little old lady had rushed up to where Mac was holding the bag snatcher down with a knee between his shoulder blades, wrestled her bag away from her attacker’s arms, thwacked him soundly on the head with it and performed a loud citizen’s arrest. The commotion drew a crowd. The police were called. And the Sheriff arrived and pushed his hat back on his head with a harangued sigh when he saw the amount of people gathered around the street corner. 

Mac sat up to catch the Sheriff’s eye as he made his way through the concerned citizens, dispersing them with promises to take care of everything. The crowd drifted away, back to their days with gossip to share. 

The town Mac was in looked the way small towns always do in movies. Quiet and pleasant. Tree lined and quaint. There was a hardware store, a post office, a chemist and a toy shop. The road he was on led to a grass covered square with an old brick building in the centre that was either a library or the town hall. There was probably a Christmas pageant every December and an annual harvest festival. 

The thief was arrested and led away and Mac was thanked for his assistance and instructed to come to the police station to make a statement. 

He’d scraped his elbow when he’d fallen with the bag snatcher and he pulled up his sleeve to prod at the wound as he and the old lady, who’s name turned out to be Lily, were sat on hard wooden chairs at the police station waiting to give their testimonies. 

“You’re hurt!” She exclaimed, “You should have said sooner, I’ll get something to clean that up, wait right there.” 

“No, it’s fine, it’s just a scratch.” Mac’s protests died off into a sigh as Lily bustled out of the room like a determined mother hen without paying any attention to them. 

He heard her harassing someone and minutes later she bustled back in and over to him clutching a first aid kit in her hands. 

“Now, let me look at that.” She nodded at his arm, her grey eyes sharp and commanding, and Mac found himself holding his elbow out for her inspection. “You need to be careful, it could get infected,” she dabbed at the scratch with an antiseptic wipe, “just because you are young and fit doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look after yourself.” When the scratch was cleaned and covered to her satisfaction Lily snapped the first aid kit shut and sat up straight, pulling her cardigan around her chest and looking at Mac with a keen expression. “Right then,” she said brightly. 

Mac found himself leaning away warily from her expectant smile. She looked ready to adopt him, his act of kindness giving her an excuse to coddle him that she was absolutely thrilled about. He hadn’t helped her for recognition, he’d intended to catch the bag snatcher, get the lady’s purse back for her then move on. He wasn’t planning to stay in the town, he’d just wanted to find some lunch and figure out where he would go next. 

“What brings you to our town today? Are you here to see someone or are you looking for work?” 

“No, nothing like that, I’m just passing through.” Mac motioned to the bag that was resting at his feet. 

“Oh, well,” she glanced at her watch, “you’re going to miss the last bus, especially since Frank, Sheriff Cartwright that is, it taking his sweet time getting these statements. You could stay with us tonight!” She beamed a delighted smile at him, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. “I’m staying at my daughter’s to help out while her husband is away, there’s plenty of room.” 

“No, really, that isn’t necessary.” 

“It’s the least I can do after what you did for me. It’s not the money I would have cared about,” she tightened her grip on the purse in her lap, “it’s would have been knick knacks that I missed, things that were gifts from my late husband.” She softened, smiling, her gaze becoming unfocused for a moment, before her intent focused back on Mac. 

“I was glad to help, but-” Mac tried to insist but Lily was resolute. 

“I insist. I made lemonade with my granddaughter this morning and I was going to make a peach cobbler for after supper. You look like you need feeding up.”

“No, you don’t have to-”

She waved a hand at him, brushing his objections away that she was shooing a fly. “One good turn deserves another.” 

“But really, I don’t-” 

“It wouldn’t be right for you to spend the night in one of those motel places, not now you have a friend in town.” 

“I wasn’t going to-”

“And my daughter would love to meet you.” She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “That is if we ever get out of here. Frank!” she stood and marched out of the room with the first aid box clutched in her hands. “Frank!” Mac heard her shout. “How long are you going to keep that nice young man and I waiting? We haven’t got all day to sit in your uncomfortable waiting room. Is it too much to ask for you to have a couple of cushion on the chairs in there for us older folks to use? And would it kill you to put a duster around the place every now and then? Frank!” 

Mac listened to her go, resigned to his fate and feeling a little bit sorry for Sheriff Frank Cartwright. If he was really honest with himself, the prospect of a home cooked meal with a family was appealing. For the last few days all he’d eaten was food from vending machines and dubious looking hot dog stands. 

He’d visited cities on his travels, choosing his next destination at random. The press of people in the busy urban streets made him feel isolated and detached, the feeling of ice engulfing him that he’d experienced on the train had become so great that he’d found himself standing in the busy foyer of a museum, incapable of movement, watching families walk by and feeling as alienated from them as he would have been if he was stood inside an exclusion zone wearing his bomb disposal suit. 

It was easier to feel lonely on your own. So he headed to smaller towns. The countryside. Wide open spaces. He was in the town because the first bus to leave the station he had started his day in came there and he hadn’t wanted to linger in the large, echoing building. 

But to sit and have supper with a nice, if bossy, old lady and her family would be good. And he did like peach cobbler. 

Frank, Sheriff Cartwright, took their statements and gave Lily and Mac a lift to her daughter’s farm. Mac was certain that part of the reason he offered to drive them was to get Lily out of the station before she started nagging him about the state of his office. Lily’s daughter looked surprised but not shocked by Mac’s presence and at the news that he was going to be house guest that night. She went to make up the guest bed with little more than a nod and a raised eyebrow. Lily must be indomitable and unexpected all the time, Mac decided. 

Lily told the story of how Mac had stopped the thief over a glass of lemonade, making it sound much more dramatic and perilous that it actually had been. They talked about the family and the farm and when Lily’s daughter mentioned that her tractor was broken Mac offered to have a look at it. Which is how he found himself in a barn, with the majority of his upper body inside a tractor, with oil on his hands, his cheek and the back of his neck. 

The tractor was in pieces on the floor as Mac methodically checked each section. The barn smelled of warm hay and engine parts and the quiet of the open land around it was soothing. Mac could hear the call of a bird defending it’s territory and the low buzz of bees as they passed the open door. 

The satisfaction of working with his hands to fix something that wasn’t needed to track down a suspect, protect his friends, save the world, or find his father reminded him that he actually loved just building things. He was certain he had tracked the tractor’s problem back to his source and that he knew how to fix it. The simplicity was refreshing. He felt at peace in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. 

The drone of another bee was joined by footsteps, and Mac drew his head out of the metal frame to see a little girl grinning shyly at him. 

“Hello, you must be Katie, your grandma has told me all about you.” She looked about five or six years old and had inherited her grandmother’s sharp, grey eyes which were currently dancing with curiosity. 

“Hi.” She waved. “Grandma said you helped her get her purse back.” 

“That’s right.” 

“And that you’re staying with us tonight. We’re having peach cobbler.” She moved further into the barn, sitting on a bale of hay next to where Mac was working. 

“I’m looking forward to it.” Mac used a rag to wipe grease off the part he had just taken out of the tractor’s engine to get a better look at it. “I had some of the lemonade you made, it was lovely.” 

“Thank you, me and my grandma made it together.” She eyed the parts that littered the barn floor dubiously. “Are you fixing our tractor?” 

Laughing and her concerned expression, Mac nodded. “Yep, I had to take it apart to find the problem but I know what’s been going wrong and when I put it back together again it should be as good as new. I promise.” 

She pursed her lips and refrained from comment, looking so much like Lily that Mac feared for the future generation of town sheriffs. 

“I drew you a picture, to say thank you for helping my grandma, she would have been sad if she lost her purse.” She held up the drawing she had in her hand. The picture had been done with crayons in thick, bold marks. It was of the house and the tractor with Mac stood next to them with seventeen fingers and wild yellow hair. ‘Thank you from Katie’ was written in wobbly letters along the bottom of the page in the same blue crayon she had used to colour his eyes. 

“That’s wonderful, thank you.” He took it carefully between two fingers to try to avoid putting oil on the paper. “I’ve been sending letters to my friends at home about the places I’ve visited, do you think I could send this to them so they’ll know what it looks like here, they’d love to see it.” 

“Yes,” she swelled with pride, “it would be like a postcard by me.” 

The carefully folded picture went in an envelope with three oily fingermarks on it and a note on the back that said: 

“There’s an actual white picket fence around the house. 

The peach cobbler was delicious. 

Katie says hello.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

It wasn’t cheating. It wasn’t. 

It was remembering and that’s not the same at all. 

He remembered what cards had been played. And that meant he knew what to do with the cards in his hand. It wasn’t cheating. It was strategy. 

But Mac knew that casinos weren’t keen on strategic card players. Very not keen. Violently not keen. So he was careful. 

He wanted some cash. And after days of looking at rolling fields he was searching for different scenery and The Astral Court Casino certainly offered it. 

Instead of flat expanses of green and yellow he was surrounded by light and noise. Bright lights flashed and glittered and different sounds shouted to him from every angle. Slot machines chimed, coins clattered as they poured through metal shoots, voices called in dismay or celebration, music and invitations to play relentlessly pushed at him and his first few moments inside the casino were ones of sensory overload. 

Mac fought the urge to flinch away from the assault of too much stimulus and forced himself to walk slowly through the lines of games, letting himself grow used to the clamour. 

He had told Jack that he wanted to go somewhere that had a bigger sky and he had found it, spending days in the countryside underneath a huge blue vastness where clouds drifted lazily and the moon and stars were beautifully clear at night. The space had been healing. The ice that had seemed to be enclosing him was fading away. 

He had missed his friends and had found himself wondering what nickname Jack would have given the weathered old man who had given him a ride when he had been stuck sheltering from heavy rain in a gas station (Crumbledore? The Wizened of Oz?) and what Bozer would have said about the Biggest Ball of Wool in the World. (Probably, ‘that is a big assed ball of wool, who needs that many sweaters anyway?’) 

As a scientist it was Mac’s duty to examine theories and explore probabilities and if there was a possibility of him being among a crowd without experiencing the frightening feeling of being utterly alone and unable to connect with a single person there he should test it. 

Acclimatising to the casino, Mac began to take in the details of his surroundings. The decoration had been done on an outer space theme to go with the casino’s name, with astral references everywhere he looked. Little white lights twinkled like constellations on the celling and there was a mural of the solar system on the wall, Saturn’s rings were out of proportion and Jupiter didn’t have enough moons, he noticed. 

He tried his luck with a few slot machines, choosing ones called Pennies from Heaven, Cash Comet and, his favourite, Double Hubble Trouble, and he lost all the money he fed into them. But he got seven dimes back after putting three into the machine with little arms pushing at the coins balancing tantalisingly close to the edge of the ledges they were perched on, so that was a kind of victory. After making two laps around the floor Mac picked a card table at random and sat down. 

Harry had taught Mac card games, his father didn’t play. He said he didn’t see the point in something that was as much down to chance as skill. Mac and Harry would play together with an old set of Harry’s cards and a jar of buttons, and he would sometimes play with the Bozers when they had a family games night. They would take turns wearing the dealer’s green visor and there’s was photo in Bozer’s parent’s home of the four of them sat around a card strewn table, all of them grinning, with the visor sitting lop-sided on Bozer’s head. 

He and his dad fought about it once. A question about why Mac couldn’t do something more productive with his time spiralled into the two of them yelling at each other. 

“You are capable of better things than playing pointless games of chance. You are wasting your time, Angus. I taught you better than that!” 

“Not everything is about learning and being smart!” Mac had shouted back. “We have fun. We laugh, it’s nice.” 

“Nice? It's _nice_? ” His dad had scoffed with disbelief. 

“What’s wrong with nice? If you don’t…I can’t…” With a wordless shout of frustration Mac had turned away and his father had grabbed his upper arm in a hard grip to stop him. 

“Is that how you’re going to deal with not being able to win an argument?” He’d demanded. “By storming off? Come on, Angus, is that the best you can do?” 

Mac twisted and pulled his arm free with an effort. “Maybe I just don’t want to be near you!” he had yelled and ran from the room. 

The hold his father had taken of Mac’s arm had left bruises, marks that Mac had been inexplicably ashamed of and kept hidden until they had faded. 

His father wasn’t demonstrative, they didn’t touch often. Their contact fading away as the years after his mother’s death passed. They hadn’t hugged when they’d met again after fifteen years apart, either in the McMansion or at any point afterwards, they hadn’t even shaken hands. It hadn’t occurred to either of them. 

But they had touched. His dad had touched him, Mac realised, during the mess of their reunion and mission. He had pulled Mac out of the line of fire when they were discovered housebreaking and then his father had pushed him aside, shielding him with his own body, when the cartel solider had pointed a gun at Mac. That had to mean something, didn’t it? Something good. Something like love. 

The hand of cards he had been dealt by the croupier was, as his grandpa used to say, like the back of a horses hoof. He waited and watched. He wasn’t in a hurry and had no intention of being greedy, a couple of wins, a little bit of cash and a hour or two spent challenging his reactions was all Mac wanted. He ordered a drink from a waitress wearing a uniform covered in crescent moons and shooting stars, and rearranged the cards he was holding. 

In the next envelope he sent home was an Astral Court Casino book of matches and a note written on the back of a Jack of Spades saying: 

“The Jack’s weren’t wild. It made a change.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My gran used to say "I have a hand like the back of a horses hoof' when we used to play Gin Rummy together as a family, I don't know how rubbish hand of cards looks like a horses hoof. I always like the saying though and have started using it when I play cards with my nephews to pass it on to the next generation.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

There was a bug inside the laptop. Mac popped open the case and shook the computer until the trapped insect fell out and scuttled away as fast as it’s six little legs could carry it. Mac had expected to have to worry about bears raiding the camp and rainwater seeping into the equipment but creepy crawlies inside the tech was never a problem he’d considered. 

He met the research team in a convenience store. They were having trouble with their truck and Mac fixed it with parts from a folding metal chair. They took him for a beer to say thank you. One beer turned into three as they talked about research, methodologies and swapped lab partner horror stories. It had felt good to get geeky. 

Three beers became six as the conversation moved onto books, TV shows and theories about the plot lines of the next Star Wars movie. Someone turned up the jukebox during the next two beers and they ended up dancing on the sticky wooden floor in front of the bar’s stage. Mac even found himself slow dancing with one of the researchers, Marcy, who was studying the effect of changing Co2 levels on tree growth and thought that Luke Skywalker was going to appear as a force ghost. Mac had to dredge through old memories to recall the last time he’d slow danced with a girl. It had been at high school when he’d danced with Anna-Marie Beale at the Winter Formal. She’d been coming out of a growth spurt while he’d was heading into one so he’d had to pull himself up almost onto his toes for her to rest her head on his shoulder. 

One of the original members of the research party had dropped out before they left on the trip so the scientists had a space in their truck and Mac was invented to come with them into a National Park to carry out research for a funding application. 

Mac was enjoying being part of a group again. The six of them worked alongside each in comfortable companionship. Focused but light-hearted. A team. 

He’d missed being able to meet the gaze of another and smile in shared understanding and the camaraderie was welcome. 

And as workstations go, the one they were using was spectacular. There were deep, fresh greens wherever he look. Soaring trees, cold, clear streams and snow topped peaks surrounded them and the wildlife was incredible. He’d seen red foxes hunt, bison graze and birds of prey wheeling overhead. The air and the land around him was clear and beautiful in a way that he couldn’t just see but could feel, bone deep, right to his core, which should have sounded clichéd but was just true. 

“Mac, how’s the laptop?” Juan, one of the team’s three biologist shouted to him, “Have you been able to fix it?” 

Mac pulled himself up from the ground in front of his tent, wiping grass of the back of his pants, “Yes, it had a bug in it. Literally. It should be fine now.” He carried the laptop over to Juan and laid it down on the table next to where he was writing labels for the samples he had just collected. Mac glanced idly at the vials, wondering what he had managed to gather and saw the date printed in blue letters on each glass tube. 

It was his mom’s birthday. 

They hadn’t commemorated his mother’s birthday when he was living with his father, his dad had never acknowledged or mentioned it. Mac now suspected that his father acted that way because of how painful losing his mother had been for him. Remembering her birthday must have emphasised her loss, but as a child it had felt to Mac like his dad hadn’t cared. And Mac had wanted to care. Other kids made birthday cards for their moms with paint and dry macaroni and he didn’t have anyone to do that for. He wanted someone to accept a gift that he had made for her and tell him how much she would have loved it. The sorrow and disappointment of not having that hurt in a way he had struggled to understand as a child. 

As an adult the days his mom’s birthday fell on weren’t usually great, but they weren’t always bad. He generally became aware that the date was approaching a few weeks beforehand, realising that in less than a month his mom would have been… he hadn’t actually thought about what age she would have turned for years. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she wasn’t able to celebrate it. The time approaching the date was often more difficult that the day itself, the presence of impending grief looming heavily over him with cold intent, while the actual day came with a lingering mood of mourning and regret. 

It wasn’t the fact of his mom’s birthday that sent Mac reeling when he saw the date printed in Juan’s neat handwriting. Its arrival was a mathematical certainly after all, the cycling calendar working the way it did. It was the suddenness of it. He had lost track of the date while he’d been travelling. Since he’d arrived at the National Park he hadn’t even been sure what day it was. He hadn’t had chance to prepare, to make peace with the repeated truth of her loss. 

She would have loved the park. She would have loved the wilderness, the animals, the researchers, the science and seeing Mac among it all. If she had been there she would have asked dozens of questions about the results that were being recorded and waded into the nearby stream to feel the chill of the snowmelt water rushing over her toes. 

“…are jumping again,” Juan was saying, scowling at his laptop, “and the focus is spotty.” He turned the screen around to show Mac black and white footage of a deer walking through a thicket of trees, the picture skipped and the clarity was uneven. 

“Oh, right, yeah.” Mac scrubbed at his forehead with his thumb, pulling his attention back to his surroundings, “Camera trap nine is acting up again. I can fix that. I’ll go and fix that.” 

  


Mac was sweating and breathing heavily when he arrived at the tree where the malfunctioning camera was hidden. He’d walked there at a fast pace, wanting to invigorate his muscles and clear his head. Movement always helped calm him. 

The camera was up in a tree and Mac needed to climb up in to the lower branches to reach it. Settling himself on a thick branch, he popped open the trap’s casing and started checking the circuit board for problems. 

Movement in his peripheral vision made him look up. A pack of wolves were making their way across the open grassland beside him. Six adults with heavy, grey coats and three black furred cubs loped through the grass. He gasped and reached out to steady himself on the tree’s bark. He’d hoped to see wolves, the researchers has found evidence of them but there had been so sightings or footage of any of the group. Mac thought about reaching for the camera but stayed motionless, watching, not wanting to miss a moment of the pack or to see them through the filter of a lens. He wanted to see them in their raw, natural state. 

They were long legged and relaxed, moving at a pace that was slow for the adults but challenging for one of the youngsters, who struggled to keep up and fell behind the rest of the group. As the pack moved away the cub sat back on it’s haunches and let out a high pitched whine, attracting it’s mother who circled back then gently picked her baby up in jaws that were strong enough to crush bone and carried it back to it’s family. 

Mac heard himself let out a choked cry of grief. The thrill of seeing the wolves was eclipsed by an overwhelming wave of loss and sorrow. 

Wasn’t it supposed to be that easy? Families? Caring for people? You just had to love each other. Wasn’t it an instinct that all animals understood? You were there for the ones that mattered to you. You were _there._

He hunched over into an instinctive curve of protection, leaning his shoulder on the trunk of the tree, and wept. The wolf pack moved over the horizon while Mac sobbed. Leaving him to his anguish unobserved. 

He knew why his dad had left but he didn’t truly understand his reason. How could anyone chose to leave their child behind? How could abandonment be protection? 

Mac’s dad had slowly grown estranged from him after his mom had passed away and they’d been at odds when they’d found each other again, even as they’d travelled together and fought side by side. Finding his father was supposed to help, give him answers, but talking with him hadn’t filled the emptiness inside Mac. It hadn’t brought his dad back. 

His mom’s death had taken his father away too. 

The bark was rough against his arms as he held on to the branches, supporting himself against the solid strength of the tree, his forehead resting on the crook of his elbow. His sobs hurt, formed deep inside him, too harsh and devastating to be simply called crying. 

It was his mom’s birthday. 

He missed her. 

Mac didn’t try to stop the tears, letting his pain flow out. 

  


The section of a tourist map showing the part of the park he had been staying in went into an envelope, the back of the paper bearing the note: 

“I saw a wolf family. They looked happy, healthy and well fed. 

‘The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack’. 

M.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack is from the poem The Law for Wolves by Rudyard Kipling .


	5. Chapter 5

**5**

It had been like a montage from a movie. Travelling along dark roads lit by street lamps and brightly coloured adverts for products he didn’t want and places he was never going to go to. It had been cold inside the Greyhound bus and Mac had needed to pull his hoodie on and huddle into his coat to stay comfortable. The other passengers had been silent, most of them were sleeping, and the quiet had been a little melancholy but restful. All the bus ride needed to be just like a scene where a movie’s protagonist was on a literal journey that mirrored their figurative one was for there to be a Bruce Springsteen track playing in the background. And maybe for everything to be in black and white. 

When he left the bus Mac hired a car and had driven until the gas tank needle was nearing empty. After spotting a sign in the distance he pulled into a truck stop that promised, “Gas. Food. The best coffee for miles around”, ready for all three in whatever order they arrived in. 

Annie’s Little Castle offered rest and refreshment to weary travellers twenty four hours a day. It was clean, had a simple interior of cream seats and brown tables and smelled of warmth and home cooking. Mac sat at the counter and rested his elbow on the surface, accepting a coffee from the smiling waitress who looked younger than him and called him sweetie. He sipped his drink, it was good coffee, and looked around. About a dozen people were sat throughout the diner, all men, some in baseball caps who were bent over their meals as if eating was an important duty that required their full attention, and few in rumpled suits with briefcases lying on the tables next to them and world weary shadows in eyes that stared off in to the mid-distance. 

“Are you ready to order yet?” The waitress was back, eyebrows raised and a pad and pencil in her hand. 

“No, sorry, I haven’t thought about it.” He scrambled to pick up a menu. 

“That’s okay, there’s no rush. Just let me know when you’re ready.” She waved in the direction of his cup, “And give me a shout if you’d like more coffee.” 

“I will, thank you.” Mac could hear a country song playing on the radio as he read through the menu, a duet between a man and a woman about kissing and dancing all night, the waitress was humming along as she wiped down the empty tables. 

There was a pool table tucked in a corner past the sign for the restrooms, it’s green felt faded and worn around the edges of the pockets, along with a dart board and an arcade game. 

“It gets used a lot,” the waitress said, noticing where Mac was looking as she stood beside him with her hip resting on the counter. “A lot of people want a bit of company after travelling alone so will have a game with someone they’ve just met. It’s sweet really. I’ve seen huge, tattooed truckers playing pool with businessmen in three piece suits. Do you like the song?” she gestured vaguely at the radio beside the service hatch. “Me and my boyfriend danced to it on our first date. Well, he’s my fiancé now,” she flushed in delight and held out her left hand so Mac could see the ring on her finger. 

“Congratulations.” Having the late night shift must have been dull for her and she was clearly pleased to have someone new to talk to. Her eager friendliness was charming and Mac smiled at her pink cheeked joy. “Have you picked a date?” 

“No, not really. I’d like it to be in the spring. We need to save up some money first, everything is so expensive, you know?” 

Mac nodded in agreement, he had no idea how much a wedding cost. 

“So, what are you?” she narrowed her eyes and gazed at him appraisingly. “You’re not a trucker. You’re not a businessman or a salesman. You’re too old to be a college kid. So what brings you here in the middle of the night,” she checked her watch, “or early in the morning?” 

“I’m just,” he held up his hands and let them drop into his lap, “I’m just travelling. To see…things.” The anticlimactic ending to the sentence was a little embarrassing but he didn’t know what else to say. He’d never really been able to give a name to what he was doing, either to himself or anyone else. 

“Ah,” the waitress nodded knowingly. “It’s like that. You're searching. On the move to keep moving.” 

“Yeah,” Mac tilted his head to one side and pressed his lips together as her considered her conclusion. “Yeah, that’s not wrong.” 

“We see people like you here sometimes along with the professional travellers. Usually at two in the morning, looking tired, hungry and a little heart sick.” She leaned towards him conspiratorially, “I give them an extra-large helping of pie, they seem like they need it.” 

“That’s really sweet of you. I’m sure they appreciate it.” 

“I like to think they do. In the end, it’s the little things that matter isn’t it? That type of little kindness is what makes the world go around. ” She wrapped her arms around her middle and leaned back to rest against the stool next to him, “I wonder, when I see guys like you, what it is that they are searching for. And what they’ll do when they find it.” Her expression was genuinely curious. “So, do you think you’ve found anything yet?” 

“I don’t know.” Mac ducked his head meekly and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I think that’s the answer to your question. I do know that I’m not as… I don’t need to move in the same way I did when I left. I don’t need to look so hard for something. I think maybe there isn’t really anything I need to find.” 

“That sounds like what Dorothy says at the end of the Wizard of Oz, that if she ever goes looking for her heart’s desire again, she won’t go any further then her own backyard because if it’s not there she never really lost it in the first place.” 

“Does that make me Dorothy?” Mac wrinkled his nose in exaggerated chagrin. 

She threw her head back and laughed. “Not in those shoes.” She said, pointing to his scuffed boots. “But,” She nodded her head from side to side as she thought, her ponytail swinging with the movement. “Knowing that you don’t need to look for anything, that sounds good. It means that you haven’t lost anything. It sounds positive, don’t you think?” 

“Yes. You’re right. It does.” 

She grinned, seeming pleased for him, and shook herself with a start, as if she had just remembered where she was. “I can’t stand here all night bothering you. I’m stopping you from reading the menu and those coffee cups aren’t going to refill themselves. I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” She patted his arm and walked away. 

Mac picked up the menu again, wondering what kind of pie was available. A new song was playing on the radio, a gentle melody about dusty roads and harvest moons sung by a woman with pretty voice. 

The waitress was moving between the tables behind him, chatting, smiling and pouring coffee. Her friendly voice blended with the country songs and the hissing of frying food to create a tranquil soundtrack to early the hour. Mac wasn’t sure where he was, he had no idea where he was going next, he was tired and it was three in the morning but he felt okay. Safe. Happy even. And the waitress was right. Knowing that he didn’t need to search anymore was a good thing. A positive step towards home. 

He sent a flyer for Annie’s Little Castle home with the note: 

“Greyhound buses have their air con turned up too high. Your grandma was right about always carrying an extra sweater. 

Steak and eggs taste good at 3am. 

I played pool with a man called Bucky. He won. 

Mac.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration for Annie's Little Castle came from the song Untouchable Face by Ani Di Franco, specifically the lines:
> 
> Two-thirty in the morning  
> And my gas tank will be empty soon  
> Neon sign on the horizon  
> Rubbing elbows with the moon  
> A safe haven of sleepless  
> Where the deep fryer's always on  
> And the radio is counting down  
> The top twenty country songs
> 
> A like the sound of a safe haven of sleepless and thought Mac could do with one at this point.


	6. Chapter 6

**\+ 1**

There had been a mix up with the booking and Mac had spent the night in the honeymoon suite. The man on reception had stumbled over embarrassed apologies but Mac hadn’t minded. There had been a bottle of wine chilling in an ice bucket when he’d arrived in the room and he’d learnt how to make a swan out of a bath towel by reverse engineering the ones folded to look like lovebirds that had been placed on the bed. 

He’d slept in the middle of the large bed and left the hotel refreshed after a soak in the deep tub in the bathroom. He walked aimlessly, looking for somewhere to buy a coffee and a newspaper when someone called out to him. 

“’Scuse me,” Mac felt a hand on his arm and turned to find a teenage boy holding an envelope out to him, “someone asked me to give this to you.” 

He stared down at the letter in disbelief for several long, silent seconds until he became aware of the boy’s eyebrows rising in question and concern. 

“Who asked you to give that to me?” The envelope was plain and white, the kind that could be bought in millions of different stores. It was completely blank, with no return address and without even Mac’s name written on the front. 

“Some guy. He pointed you out and gave me $20 to bring this to you.” 

“What did he look like?” 

“I don’t know,” a shrug shifted the oversized hoodie the boy was wearing, “He was just some guy.” The boy shoulders were slumping sullenly, and he pushed the envelope closer to Mac’s hand, awkward under his scrutiny. “Do you want it?” 

“Yes, I’ll take it.” Mac’s hand closed on the envelope and the boy stepped away from him. “Thank you.” 

“No worries.” A nod and he was gone, disappearing into the busy street, presumably with the intent to spend his earnings. 

Mac studied the area around him, quickly examining everyone he could see but no one was watching him and he couldn’t see anything suspicious or out of place. There was no sign of who could have sent him the letter. He held his envelop up, turning it over carefully in his hands then shook it and heard a single piece of paper slide from side to side. 

The envelope couldn’t contain a bomb or anything that was likely to hurt anyone around him and was probably just what it looked like: a perfectly innocent letter. But, no one knew where he was, he hadn’t even decided to come to that city until the day before, and appearances could be deceptive. So found a quiet corner, away from the people and traffic, and sat on the stone steps of an old church to open it. 

Inside was a page that had been torn from the P section of an Encyclopaedia Britannica. The entry for phoenix had been circled in red pen with an address and time written on the back. 

“Aukley and Rosedale. 

12.30pm.” 

The church’s bells rang out the time as Mac stared at the paper in his hand. It didn’t feel like a threat or a trick, he didn’t feel the pull in his gut that warned him of danger. 

If somebody who had the resources to find him wanted to hurt him they would have been more direct about it. He couldn’t imagine Murdoc or the La Ola Cartel slipping a teenager twenty bucks to deliver a page from an encyclopaedia. The delivery felt like a plea, like he was being asked to come, like he was needed. 

A phoenix and an appeal for help could only mean…

Mac stood, pushing the envelope into the back pocket of his jeans and set off for the address on the letter. 

  


The address led him to the alley behind a second hand book store where a dumpster stood against a wall between a dripping drainpipe and a pile of cigarette stubs. The early afternoon sun filled the alley with light, illuminating the graffiti declaring that someone ‘bad to the bone’ had been by and leaving no dark shadows for anyone with unfriendly intent to hide in. Mac hovered near the entrance to the alley, unwilling to walk in and leave himself vulnerable to being cornered against one of the brick walls. His hands twitched, moving involuntarily to trace the shape of the letter in his pocket again, and he pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to check his watch, using the movement to stretch out his fingers and try to calm his restless energy. He was attempting to look nonchalant, not like he was worried about whether he was going to encounter an assassin. 

“You’ve bought yourself a new watch then?” 

“Boze!” Mac was pulling his friend into a hug before he was even aware of making the decision to move away from the wall he was leaning against. He hugged Bozer fiercely, the joy of seeing him again expressed in the tight hold he couldn’t seem to loosen. “I missed you, man.” 

Bozer hugged him back just as hard. “I missed you too, I can’t remember the last time something in the house went boom, it doesn’t feel right.” 

“Hey, Mac.” Riley smiled at him from where she was stood next to Bozer. “It’s good to see you.” 

“You too.” He released his hold on Bozer to pull Riley into a similar hug. One that was gleeful and hearty and lifted her onto toes with his enthusiasm. “You both look great. It feels forever since I’ve seen you.” 

He had seen and felt and thought through so much since he’d been away that it was as if a vast oceans of time had passed since they’d been together when in reality it could only have been a few months. He had considered the possibility that the note he had received had been from his friends but he’d tried not to hope to see them, afraid of how disappointed he would be if his rendezvous turned out to be with someone else. Mac laughed, almost light headed with the wonderful strangeness of having his friends suddenly there in front of him. 

“God, I missed you guys. It’s like -” he faltered, watching at how his friend’s smiles were growing weaker and worry was replacing the brightness in their eyes. Mac looked past Riley and Bozer, failing to see a third figure standing with them, “why isn’t…where’s…what’s happened?” 

Riley’s lips quirked into curve of concern and resignation. “It’s Jack.” 

  
  


Mac’s back thudded against the stone wall of the outcropping. He could feel each ridge of the rough surface digging into his back through his wet shirt while the stamp of a dozen combat boots pounded over their heads. 

“They’re headed west.” 

“Your diversion worked then.” 

“Did you think it wouldn’t?” 

“You’ve been out of the game for a spell, I thought maybe you’ve lost your edge.” Jack grinned at Mac and winked. “Or all this rain could have rusted your brain. I feel like it’s starting to clog up all my moving parts.” He shook himself like a dog, sending raindrops flying. 

“I’m confident that my edge is still edgy, thanks for your concern.” Mac pushed his dripping hair away from his eyes with one hand. “But I won’t complain if this rain stops. ” 

Heavy rain had been falling for nearly an hour, the drops were huge, relentless and had quickly formed into rivulets that streamed over ground that wasn’t able to absorb all the liquid thundering down on it. The grey sheets of water had obscured visibility beyond four feet ahead of Mac and Jack, which had helped their escape but they were both soaked and cold and Mac was starting to worry that exfill wouldn’t be able to see them when it arrived. 

“So,” Jack said, turning to Mac conversationally, “how was your trip?” 

“Do you really want to talk about this now?” Mac’s chilly forehead creased in disbelief. 

“We just have to wait here for exfill to arrive, so now is a perfect time to chat.” 

“Chat?” Mac wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed his hands up and down his sleeves in an attempt to ward off his shivers. “Right now?” 

“Look, man, I’m hungry, I’m cold, my underwear is wet, my feet are so sore they feel like they have their own heartbeat and I’ve just spent I don’t know how many days with a super fun crew of people traffickers. I’d really like to hear something distracting right about now. So distract me, pretty please.” 

Jack did look miserable, his stubble was longer than usual and his eyes looked sunken and haunted. He was favouring his left side in a way that made Mac concerned about the state of his ribs. 

“Did you get my letters?” 

“I did. They were pretty edifying. They made it sound like you were having a good time on the road, like in that Jack Crackerjack book.” 

“Jack Kerouac.” Mac corrected automatically. “‘There was nowhere to go but everywhere, and keep rolling under the stars,’ he quoted, mostly to himself, as he planted his feet firmly on the floor and slumped back against the rock behind him. “I did have an interesting time while I was away.” He looked down, watching a surge of rainwater rush over his toes and trying to assemble an answer to Jack’s question. “Some the places I went to and the things I did were hard. Some things were sad. Some of them were funny. But they were all good, it was worthwhile.” 

“Did it help?” Jack’s voice was gentle and steady, the way it had sounded when he was helping Mac find a way out of the panic he’d been caught in after leaving the Phoenix. 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” Jack’s hand squeezed Mac’s shoulder and he lifted his gaze to look at his friend. “That’s what I hoped for, bud.” 

“I missed you all. I thought about everyone a lot while I was away.” Mac confessed, wanting Jack to understand that he hadn’t left his friends behind, not really, that he carried them with him wherever he was. 

“I understand that.” Jack nodded sagely. “The Jack Dalton experience is one that not easily forgotten or reproduced.” 

“The Jack Dalton experience? That sounds like the name of a band that plays in jazz bars.” Mac laughed. “Or a 70’s prog rock group.” 

“Says the man with a name like a rejected character from Braveheart. How’s your Scottish accent, Angus?” 

“Better than Mel Gibson’s.” Mac countered. 

“Good point.” Jack raised his eyebrows. “Luckily, I don’t have to come up with a witty riposte to that because look,” he pointed to a light in the sky, “exfill’s nearly here.” 

They both watched the light grow brighter, readying themselves for when they would have to make a dash through the rain. 

“What do you think you are going to do?” Jack asked, keeping his eyes on their ride as it approached. “When we get back, that is. What do you want to do next?” 

“After I put some dry clothes on you mean?” Mac looked over at Jack who was carefully avoiding his eye, “I think I’ve seen enough sky. I don’t need to run anymore. I know which wolf is the right one to feed now.” He paused then cleared his throat, “I’m going to come home.” 

“That’s awesome news, brother.” Jack turned, beaming, and pulled Mac into a forceful hug. The enthusiastic slaps Jack placed on Mac’s back stung his cold skin and Mac could feel his feet squelching inside his wet socks but he felt warmed by affection. By his own for his friend and the love that was directed towards him from Jack. He grinned and delivered some back slaps of his own. 

“Right.” Jack gestured to the light that had to be only fifty feet away, “Let’s bounce.” 

They turned and ran out into the rain towards home together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time: I haven't actually read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I started it years and years ago and got about a third of the way through but never finished it. I'm sure Mac has read it though

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve looked for a source for the quote ‘Scars are tattoos with better stories is a quote’ but I haven’t been able to find one, it always seems to be credited to Unknown or Anonymous. 
> 
> This chapter had a little help from by Sara Bareilles with her song Breathe Again helping to set the mood:  
> “All I have, all I need, he's the air I would kill to breathe  
> Holds my love in his hands, still I'm searching for something  
> Out of breath, I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again”


End file.
